The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (10 December 1948 at Palais de Chaillot, Paris). The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled. It consists of 30 articles which have been elaborated in subsequent international treaties, regional human rights instruments, national constitutions and laws. The International Bill of Human Rights consists of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its two Optional Protocols. In 1966 the General Assembly adopted the two detailed Covenants, which complete the International Bill of Human Rights; and in 1976, after the Covenants had been ratified by a sufficient number of individual nations, the Bill took on the force of international law.

Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor.

The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (also referred to as the Trafficking Protocol) was adopted by the United Nations in Palermo, Italy in 2000, and is an international legal agreement attached to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. The Trafficking Protocol is one of three Protocols adopted to supplement the Convention. The Protocol is the first global, legally binding instrument on trafficking in over half a century and the only one that sets out an agreed definition of trafficking in persons. The purpose of the Protocol is to facilitate convergence in national cooperation in investigating and prosecuting trafficking in persons. An additional objective of the Protocol is to protect and assist the victims of trafficking in persons with full respect for their human rights. The Trafficking Protocol defines human trafficking as:

(a) [...] the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;

(b) The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used;
(c) The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article;

(d) “Child” shall mean any person under eighteen years of age.

The Trafficking Protocol entered into force on 25 December 2003. By June 2010, the Trafficking Protocol had been ratified by 117 countries and 137 parties.

Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children

 The Protocol covers the following:

• defining the crime of trafficking in human beings; essentially, trafficking is the transport of persons, by means of coercion, deception, or consent for the purpose of exploitation such as forced or consensual labor or prostitution:

"Trafficking in persons" shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs... The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth [above] shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth [above] have been used.

• facilitating the return and acceptance of children who have been victims of cross-border trafficking, with due regard to their safety;
• prohibiting the trafficking of children (which is defined as being a person under 18 years of age) for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), exploitative labour practices or the removal of body parts;
• suspending parental rights of parents, caregivers or any other persons who have parental rights in respect of a child should they be found to have trafficked a child;
• ensuring that definitions of trafficking reflect the need for special safeguards and care for children, including appropriate legal protection;
• ensuring that trafficked persons are not punished for any offences or activities related to their having been trafficked, such as prostitution and immigration violations;
• ensuring that victims of trafficking are protected from deportation or return where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that such return would represent a significant security risk to the trafficked person or their family;
• considering temporary or permanent residence in countries of transit or destination for trafficking victims in exchange for testimony against alleged traffickers, or on humanitarian and compassionate grounds;
• providing for proportional criminal penalties to be applied to persons found guilty of trafficking in aggravating circumstances, including offences involving trafficking in children or offences committed or involving complicity by state officials; and,
• providing for the confiscation of the instruments and proceeds of trafficking and related offences to be used for the benefit of trafficked persons.

The Convention and the Protocol obligate ratifying states to introduce national trafficking legislation

Regional Action against Trafficking in Human Beings

In Warsaw on 16 May 2005, the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings was opened for accession and has since been signed by 43 member states of the Council of Europe. The Convention established a Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) which monitors the implementation of the convention through country reports.

Complementary protection is ensured through the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (Lanzarote, 25 October 2007).

In addition, the European Court of Human Rights of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg has passed judgments concerning trafficking in human beings which violated obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights: Siliadin v. France, judgment of 26 July 2005, and Rantsev v. Cyprus and Russia, judgment of 7 January 2010.

The Council of Europe co-operates closely with the United Nations.

The Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others is a resolution of the UN General Assembly. The preamble states:

"Whereas prostitution and the accompanying evil of the traffic in persons for the purpose of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the individual, the family and the community"

It was approved by the General Assembly on 2 December 1949

 and came into effect on 25 July 1951. In 2007, seventy-four states were party to the convention (see map). Additionally, five states had signed the convention but had not yet ratified it.

The Convention requires state signatories to punish any person who "procures, entices or leads away, for purposes of prostitution, another person, even with the consent of that person", "exploits the prostitution of another person, even with the consent of that person", run brothels or rent accommodations for prostitution purposes. It also prescribes procedures for combating international traffic for the purpose of prostitution, including extradition of offenders.

Furthermore, Member States are required to abolish all regulations that subject prostitutes "to special registration or to the possession of a special document or to any exceptional requirements for supervision or notification". And also they are required to take the necessary measure for the supervision of employment agencies in order to prevent persons seeking employment, in partucular women and children, from being exposed to the danger of prostitution (Article 20). And If any dispute shall arise between the Parties the present Convention relating to its interpretation or application, the dispute shall, at the request of any one of the Parties to the dispute, be referred to the International Court of Justice (Article 22).

The Centre for Human Rights, specifically the secretariat of the Working Group on Slavery, in close co-operation with the Centre for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs of the Department of International Economic and Social Affairs actively monitors this resolution.

The definition of trafficking of this convention was departed from in the Trafficking protocol to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.

Commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) constitutes a form of coercion and violence against children and amounts to forced labour and a contemporary form of slavery.

A declaration of the World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, held in Stockholm in 1996, defined CSEC as:

‘sexual abuse by the adult and remuneration in cash or kind to the child or a third person or persons. The child is treated as a sexual object and as a commercial object.’

CSEC includes the prostitution of children, child pornography,^[2] child sex tourism and other forms of transactional sex where a child engages in sexual activities to have key needs fulfilled, such as food, shelter or access to education. It includes forms of transactional sex where the sexual abuse of children is not stopped or reported by household members, due to benefits derived by the household from the perpetrator. CSEC also potentially includes arranged marriages involving children under the age of 18 years, where the child has not freely consented to marriage and where the child is sexually abused.

Forms of sexual exploitation

Prostitution of children under the age of 18 years, child pornography and the (often related) sale and trafficking of children are often considered to be crimes of violence against children. They are considered to be forms of economic exploitation akin to forced labour or slavery. Such children often suffer irreparable damage to their physical and mental health. They face early pregnancy and risk sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HIV. They are often inadequately protected by the law and may be treated as criminals.

Child trafficking and CSEC sometimes overlap. On the one hand, children who are trafficked are often trafficked for the purposes of CSEC. However, not all trafficked children are trafficked for these purposes. Further, even if some of the children trafficked for other forms of work are subsequently sexually abused at work, this does not necessarily constitute CSEC. On the other hand, according to the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the definition of Severe Forms of Trafficking in Persons includes any commercial sex act performed by a person under the age of 18. This means that any minor who is commercially sexually exploited is defined as a trafficking victim, whether or not movement has taken place CSEC is also part of, but distinct from, child abuse, or even child sexual abuse. Child rape, for example, will not usually constitute CSEC. Neither will domestic violence.

Although CSEC is considered as child labour, and indeed one of the worst forms of child labor, in terms of international conventions, in legislation, policy and programmatic terms, CSEC is often treated as a form of child abuse or a crime.

Causes

The causes of CSEC are complex and patterns differ among countries and regions. For example, in some areas the commercial sexual exploitation of children is clearly related to foreign child sex tourism, in others it is associated with the local demand. In most countries, girls represent 80 to 90% of the victims, although in some places boys predominate.

As is the case for other worst forms of child labour, severe poverty, the possibility of relatively high earnings, low value attached to education, family dysfunction, a cultural obligation to help support the family or the need to earn money to simply survive are all factors that make children vulnerable to CSEC. In order to make a living children are sold into the sex trade to provide food and shelter and in some cases money to satisfy the addiction of a family member or themselves

There are other non-economic factors that also push children into commercial sexual exploitation. Children who are at greatest risk of becoming victims of CSEC are those that have previously experienced physical or sexual abuse. A family environment of little protection, where caregivers are absent or where there is a high level of violence or alcohol or drug consumption, induces boys and girls to run away from home, making them highly susceptible to abuse. Gender discrimination and low educational levels of caregivers are also risk factors. Children with extreme poverty and marginalized families in coastal areas also becoming victims of CSEC.

On the demand side, certain factors can aggravate the problem. For example, sex tourists are a source of demand for prostitution. The presence of military troops or of large public works may also create demand. Client preferences for young children, particularly in the context of the HIV and AIDS epidemic, pull in additional children. Additionally, the expansion of the Internet has facilitated the growth of child pornography.

Experience has shown that certain socio-economic characteristics, such as population density, concentration of night entertainment (bars and discos), high poverty and unemployment levels, movement of people, and access to highways, ports, or borders are also associated with CSEC.